"Eric blown to smithereens, Colin carved up, a bomb in my casino -- and you say 'nothing unusual'!" An empire-building British gangster, who envisions himself as the spearhead of London's emergence as the new capitalist capitol of Europe, unwittingly makes an enemy of the Irish Republican Army and is tremendously unimpressed: he'll "wipe 'em out, crush 'em like beetles." Bob Hoskins, with his cueball head and bull's snout, is frightening and funny at the same time, and the dialogue, when comprehensible through thick British accent and idiom, is delightfully scabrous ("Shut up, you locked streak of paralyzed piss" -- is that really what he says?). The brisk, fragmented start is hard to make head or tail of, but the pieces eventually come together nicely. With Helen Mirren and Eddie Constantine; directed by John Mackenzie. (1980) — Duncan Shepherd
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